Prof. HU Wei gave a lecture at Wuhan Branch, CAS on Sept. 13, 2017 

On the morning of September 13^th, Prof. HU Wei, assistant director of Institute of Hydrobiology (IHB) of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) gave a lecture with the title of “Transgene and its Safety: Take Transgenic Fishes as Examples” at Wuhan Branch, CAS at the invitation of Wuhan Scientists Group for Science Publicized (WSGSP), CAS.    

Hosted by Prof. ZHANG Xianfeng, head of WSGSP, the lecture began with the abstract concepts of gene, transgene, gene insertion and crossbreeding to actual practices including transgenic food safety evaluation and management system, transgenic fishes research process and specific examples of transgenic events.    

In the lecture, Prof. Hu clarified that as a modern breeding technique, transgenic technology was more precise, more controllable and safer than natural crossbreeding, so the public should treat transgene rationally and objectively and should not regard it as a dreadful monster.    

At the end of the lecture, Hu drew four conclusions: First, transgenic technology research development is definitely a strategic choice to ensure sustainable development of China; Second, as one of the most strict food management countries, China owns transgenic food safety management which conforms to international technical specification; Third, the risk of transgenic food should not be confused with that of occurred food safety incidents; Fourth, the transgenic food which has already passed safety evaluation and obtained safety certificate and non-transgenic food are equally safe to human health and edible.    

Since the transgenic safety has always been a hot topic for the public, in the Q&A part, attendees actively asked questions and heatedly discussed relevant issues. The whole part lasted for more than 1 hour, and Prof. Hu patiently answered questions including social hot spot issues, public doubts, statements that widely spread in the media, etc.   

Attendees in this meeting are natural and social science specialists who have gained relevant achievements in their respective fields and have passion for science publicized works. Through the lecture, they gained more comprehensive and deeper understanding of transgenic food. Besides, they also recognized that the science publicized work of transgene is imperative and manifested that they should firmly believe in science, fully utilize their advantages and opportunities to do more science publicized work, and widely spread knowledge of transgene to more public audiences. 

Lecture scene